Breasts: Signatory of The Mother of All Living, Nourishing Spiritually, Ruling Coitally, Part 8a

[Study Aired March 28, 2026]

Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love. (Pro 5:19)

We have a little sister, and she hath no breasts: what shall we do for our sister in the day when she shall be spoken for? (Son 8:8)

Pro 22:6  Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

Without adding to the word of God, the ‘first comes the natural, and then the spiritual’ principle, whether or not mentioned in scripture, can be applied to any aspect of the physical as a representation of the spiritual. A classic example we often use is the miracle of a caterpillar metamorphosing from an apparent ‘soup’ in its chrysalis into a beautiful butterfly, which represents our spiritual transformation. Appropriately, the concept of “imprinting” as seen in nature, likewise, is observable in the human beast, and is the subject of this last two-part (8a and 8b) study of “breasts”.

1Co 11:14  Doth not even nature [G5449] itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him?

1Co 15:46  Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural [G5591]; and afterward that which is spiritual.

Nature G5449 – 1. nature a. the nature of things, the force, laws, order of nature. [… differentiating  the Godly order, the ‘nature’ of the spiritual or directly the ‘nature’ of the physical.] 

Natural G5591 – 1. of or belonging to breath a. having the nature and characteristics of the breath. [Soul] 

Imprinting in Nature Equally Recognised in Humanity:

Accordingly, and as demonstrated with animals and nature, the explicit application of ‘training up a child in the way he should go, so that when he is old, he will not depart from it’, is the process of indelibly imprinting the ‘little sister without breasts’ her mind with physical marital ministrations to be represented spiritually “IMPRINTED” on and in her Husband, Christ.

Son 8:8  We have a little sister, and she hath no breasts: what shall we do for our sister in the day when she shall be spoken for? 

A newborn lamb’s attention is instantly attracted to the first thing that moves; even a couple of hours after being born, and will persistently follow that thing, be it a man, dog, fox, lion, or even a vehicle—anything! That self-same principle in nature mirrors babies’ and youth’s initial innocence and rapid novelty towards their immense attachment to a lust, whether righteous or unrighteous, derived from the senses, which, in modern terminology, is termed “imprinting.” Characteristically, any newborn will instantly imprint on its mother inherently for survival first through her as a life source for food and protection. In mammals, it is her breasts (udder) and all associated scents, her voice, tactile nuzzling, and her being able to hear the voice of her lamb and recognise its form out of hundreds of other lambs, all because they are both imprinted on each other.

1Pe 2:2  As newborn babes, desire [G1971] the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: 
1Pe 2:3  If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious

Desire G1971 – 1. to long for, desire 2. to pursue with love, to long after 3. to lust, [& negatively to] harbour forbidden desire.

The purpose of this study is to juxtapose the young mammal’s (including goslings, chickens, and, in fact, any beast of the field) imprinting on its mother, even as children do, before transitioning to imprint on its father’s supposed righteous authority. The problem initiated in Eden is that carnal fathers don’t have Christ’s word for their children to correctly and spiritually imprint on them, since youth quickly see fathers hypocritically not guiding them or their wives righteously—a concept they can see, yet, and because nobody understands the nature of Adam and Eve’s curses, can’t righteously identify the issues. Nonetheless, the children still acquire, and have imprinted on them their father’s unrighteous creed and morals—even as we did of Satan when immersed in Babylon. Consequently, as seen in Proverb 22:6, none are taught and “trained up in the way they should go”. 

The juxtaposition is correspondingly sexual, in that our sexuality directly corresponds spiritually to thoroughly grounding a person in his or her teacher. It is what Solomon concluded in the King James version of the Song of Solomon in chapter 8, titled “Final Advice”: “We have a little sister, and she hath no breasts: what shall we do for our sister in the day when she shall be spoken for?” (Son 8:8). Solomon profoundly determined that he had to train her up himself, well before oxytocin and other hormones noted by her breasts’ growth imprinted her breasts in a paramour thief’s heart. Temporarily, she is both a door and a wall that contains her until that day. Left to study in the final Song of Solomon study, and as the Heavenly Jerusalem, her doors in her walls are open day and night (Rev 21:25).

Joh 10:9  I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.

Son 8:9  If she be a wall, we will build upon her a palace of silver: and if she be a door, we will inclose her with boards of cedar. 

What causes sexual imprinting on a virgin (male or female)?

Sexual imprinting is a process where an individual learns to identify specific, desirable characteristics of a mate based on early experiences or first sexual encounters. In the context of a “virgin” (meaning a first-time experience), this imprinting is often caused by a combination of neurochemical bonding, early social experiences, and specific associative learning mechanisms. Key factors that cause or facilitate this imprinting include:

• Associative Learning and Initial Exposure: Associative learning is a fundamental cognitive process in which an organism links two stimuli or events, thereby connecting them in memory. It is the foundation of conditioning, enabling the brain to predict future events based on past experiences and to pair unrelated elements, such as sights, sounds, or behaviours. Sexual preferences are acquired through the observation of physical, psychological, or facial traits in early life (e.g., parents) or during the first experience with a mate.

• The “First Experience” Effect: A first sexual experience can act as a powerful anchor. As in some animals, such as butterflies, which can alter their mate preferences based on a single early exposure to a new phenotype, humans likewise find their preferences set or heavily influenced by their first partner’s characteristics.

• Pair-Bonding Mechanisms: Pair-bonding in animals is a complex social and neurobiological process that creates an enduring, selective attachment between two adult individuals, often characterised by shared territory, courtship, and, in some cases, biparental care. While relatively rare in mammals (only about 3-5% are socially monogamous), it is widespread in birds [indicative of the spirit and the Bride with Christ], where 95% of species form pairs. The initial sexual experience triggers the release of neurochemicals like oxytocin and dopamine, which form a strong emotional bond. This “first” can create a lasting cognitive template for what constitutes a rewarding partner.

• Parental Influence: In many cases, people tend to imprint on features that resemble their opposite-sex parent, acting as a template for potential partners.

• Positive Association: The strength of the imprinting is greater when the initial experience or early relationship with the parent is positive or emotionally supportive. 

For the young and immature, centered on a virginal woman, the often referred to “love” or “bonding hormonal” combination of oxytocin and dopamine in antipatory Song of Solomon-like intimacies, and particularly during sexual activity, creates a powerful neurochemical cocktail that facilitates sexual desire, heightens pleasure, promotes deep emotional bonding, and induces feelings of relaxation after orgasm. Together, they are key drivers of the female sexual response cycle, transforming physical stimulation into emotional and pleasurable experiences.

In short, sexual imprinting on a virgin occurs through a combination of early maternal exposure (a “first” model) and the neurobiological and cognitive impact of the very first sexual experience itself, which acts as a powerful associative memory.

While not in any way validating the upcoming saga of the key player, the following is an impactful negative experience, highly typical since the so-called sexual revolution of the 50s and 60s, of a young contemporary Babylonian girl’s imprinting sexually. In an effort to enhance the Bible student’s understanding of the emotionally and sexually charged influence of a young woman’s imprint on an older man, the example of the young, highly attractive Jane Birkin, famous for the Birkin handbag. (Hermès Birkin handbags generally range from roughly $10,000 to over $200,000, with popular leather models (25cm or 30cm) often costing $20,000–$30,000 on the secondary market. Retail prices start lower, typically around $10,000–$12,000, while rare, exotic, or smaller, in-demand bags fetch significantly higher premiums.)

Although her apparent innocence and conventional ethics were later sullied, from a young age, Jane had a very traditional young woman’s belief in being married to one man, having children and being a fantastic home-making wife. At the age of 17, her narrative strongly exemplifies the tragedy of negatively influenced “imprinting”, which becomes progressively more destructive morally. 

She was initially married to the 31-32-year-old legendary English composer, John Barry, 13 years her senior. Because of her age, her Father insisted they wait until she was 18 before they married. At age 63 in 2009, in an interview with The Guardian, she was quoted as saying, “When I lost him [Barry], I was devastated, but I was a disaster in bed. I must have been the last virgin in Chelsea” [bold mine]. What an unmitigated tragedy that Barry was soon discovered to be adulterous, with the marriage only lasting 3 years. Jane’s narrative tragically suggests shame for not already having worldly wisdom in matters of the boudoir. Now, she is powerfully sexually imprinted on Barry, albeit negatively—Barry having at least symbolically, acutely “bruised her breasts”, her heart. Now, effectively ‘old in adulteries’ from her belief that ‘she was a disaster in bed’, she seems to be blaming herself for her perception of not being erotically outstanding, and no doubt the cause of Barry’s disgraceful lust elsewhere!

Very soon after, in an apparent rebound, she later regretted not marrying, but lived for ten years with the highly coercive and abusive relationship with her second husband, the somewhat uncomplimentary looking, and brazen bad-boy, Serge Gainsbourg (Phoneically, Ganz-boor), 36. His equally tragic connection, which included incidents of violence and physical abuse, was often exacerbated by his excessive drinking. Serge’s unpredictability and worldly wilyness no doubt released oxytocin and dopamine in Jane, triggering an emotional rush of anticipation, the thrill of uncertainty, and a sense of being loved, all of which was deeply embossed (imprinted) in her heart. Serge, no doubt, authentically, yet typically male, predatory lustfully to semi-consciously imprint Jane on him, phenomenally raised her self-worth.

Serge Gainsbourg is widely credited with helping Jane Birkin recognize her own beauty and potential, transforming her from a shy actress into a confident style icon and musical artist. When they met in 1968, Birkin was reeling from a failed marriage and felt insecure, but Gainsbourg made her feel “wonderful” and gave her confidence (Demonstratively imprinting). 

Key aspects of how Gainsbourg influenced Birkin include:

• Redefining Beauty: Gainsbourg loved Birkin’s unconventional, boyish physique—often describing it as having “the top of a boy and the bottom of a girl”. He praised her look as artistic, which helped her feel beautiful, often joking that her 1960s British aesthetic was a “copy of Jean Shrimpton”.
• Creative Potential: As a musical mentor, he recognized her unique, breathy voice and encouraged her to sing.

Confidence Building: After a “disastrous” marriage to John Barry, Birkin noted that Gainsbourg healed her insecurities, giving her immense confidence and making her feel like an object of desire (Demonstratively imprinting). 

• Cultural Icon: Together, they became the defining couple of 1970s bohemian Paris fashion and culture. 

Despite his often difficult and intense personality, Birkin remembered him as a man who “never left” her and who helped her grow into her own skin.

Jane’s legend shows the powerful influence of “imprinting” on a young, impressionable woman, shaping her expectations of a far more connective sexual experience, ideally with one man; she even initially had high ideals and dedication to being the classic housewife and mother, only to have them quickly sullied by Gainsbourg. In Jane’s case, her mourning for Serge’s death, as opposed to her three-year relationship with her first adulterous husband, John Barry, Serge got her to genuinely see her potential as a woman in the world of fashion and screen, and showed her how to love and express herself (compromised for Gainsbourg’s self-serving sensuality). Such was Serge’s powerful imprinting, even from an evil personage, in different ways, indicative of us all, that his ‘imprinting’ influence was so strong that, upon Serge’s death, she remained with his body, mourning for four days. (Joh 11:39. Hopefully embalmed before the fourth day.) 

Contrasted with Jane’s experiences, God designed every detail of virginal sexuality in young men and women to be kept pure. Upon marriage, that profound sexual purity first experience, indelibly “imprints” both husband and wife on each other. It is the very reason Solomon, in his relatively infinite wisdom and experience, represents Christ, concluded in Song 8:8, to develop that level of beautiful young female ravishing responsiveness, he would have to train her up in the way she should go, pretty much from birth.

Son 8:8  We have a little sister, and she hath no breasts: what shall we do for our sister in the day when she shall be spoken for? 

We will leave further answers to that question for the actual Song of Solomon study. Our purpose is to focus on Solomon’s ultimate conclusion that, to attain such a construct, he envisioned in the previous seven chapters of his Song of Songs, he’d have to pattern her (seemingly unconsciously) after the heavenly.

Resulting from Adam and Eve’s curses, and through unrighteous lust, men in Adam are from Eden already ‘imprinted’ on women, easily transferred to their wives. Their unrighteous lust mirrors the Lord of the Old Covenant, his righteous lust, a God-designed sorrowful experience, effectively and strongly desiring to be imprinted on his wife, Old Israel, and she, on Him. 

Mal 3:16  Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name. 
Mal 3:17  And they shall be mine, saith the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. 
Mal 3:18  Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.

The overarching problem is that Old Israel, lacking in faith and represented by Aholah and more eminently Aholabah, was not imprinted on their Husband and Lord. They, and like all women, insist that their husbands are embossed in their foreheads, their breasts sentiments of endless works of their laws of romanticism. Somewhat equal in strength to Christ’s laws, being a stumbling block to the Jews and Judaean Christianity, it is a tremendous ‘stumbling block’ to a wife if her husband doesn’t demonstrably worship her. It is the Shulamite-like Bride of Christ who is given to buoyantly renew her mind by the utter reversal of that dogma, devoting her entire Body to her Husband in worship of Him!

Rom 9:31  But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness. 
Rom 9:32  Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumblingstone; 

Rom 12:1  I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. 
Rom 12:2  And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

In the representation of imprinting, I’m not necessarily recommending that the age difference in marriage be too significant, since a budding couple’s unshared generational experiences would be too different to support a sense of connection. Yet when Christ’s word is central to their union, as was Abishag’s astonishing disregard for King David’s age, the age gap becomes irrelevant. Nevertheless, as exemplified by the patriarchs of antiquity, if the young wife exhibits maturity and exceptional adaptability, she, as did Abishag, is consequently intended to glory in her God-designed domestic responsibilities irrespective of the age disparity.

Nathan’s tale of the rich man insolently taking his neighbor’s lamb to roast for his guests has embedded the concept of ‘imprinting’ in the story, illustrating how any young animal is dedicated to its benefactor.

2Sa 12:3  But the poor man had nothing, save one little ewe lamb [emphasing a female], which he had bought and nourished up: and it grew up together with him, and with his children; it did eat of his own meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was unto him as a daughter.

Both young males and females imprint on their parents or guardians. ‘Imprinting’ is particularly a young and virginal female’s proclivity since in her heart, beneath her ‘breasts’, is the seat of her emotions, designed to vastly amplify the imprinting principle. This is possibly why, in ancient times, a virtuously devoted wife could suffer among her Husband’s many other wives (their highly variable intensity of imprinting on the husband), a kind of situational dependence upon her provider, even while enduring an undercurrent of vying to be the most loved wife. It is classically represented by Leah’s endless craving to supersede Rachel. This notion culminates in Solomon’s bitter experience, which he mused would never happen again unless that wife wholly and vivaciously gives her mind and spirit to him. 

Another case of imprinting is Mary, the younger sister, being imprinted on Jesus’s word. In contrast, her elder sister, Martha, was imprinted on serving the flesh (Gen 25:23), since, semi-consciously, her pleasure was classically received in the moment, through the genuine praise for her likewise authentic serving. In contrast, Mary’s joy was realized much later, since her primary interest and concentration were the fascination of the resonant truth spoken by Jesus, imprinting it on her mind and spirit—a frontlet between her eyes.

An ‘imprinted’ person in Christ, characteristically the young Bride, follows the relatively ‘young’ Lamb of God wherever he goes, as does He, profoundly imprinted in the Father, the more senior ancient of days (Dan 7:9). It is the highly erotic virginal first sexual encounters represented as the “natural” that imprints both young marrieds on each other, cementing an infinitely greater potential for a lasting relationship, typified by the Bride with Christ, spiritually a guaranteed imprinting.

Pro 22:6  Train up a child [The Bride while she is prepubescent, without breasts] in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

Rom 6:16  Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? 
Rom 6:17  But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.
Rom 6:18  Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.

It is a tragedy that prepubescent girls are not soundly spiritually guided by their mothers and fathers about what to expect reasonably before preteens, too soon, titillatingly discover that boys take an unusual interest in them—an experience overwhelmingly too good to resist for unwitting romanticism in the making. To re-experience the new emotions triggered, she, like an aphid (another act of the natural preceding the spiritual), sidles up to be ‘farmed’ by an ant and has little difficulty coaxing him to stroke her feelings, particularly physically. Like the aphid involuntarily secreting the sweet honey-like substance for the ant’s delight and the ant’s symbiotic protection from predators, her body similarly reacts in private, as does his, soon becoming disastrously addicted, “imprinted” to arousing emotions—an experience most elegantly righteously expressed in the Song of Solomon. In the animal world, this is not a problem, as they are not made in the image of God and do not have the cognitive ability to distinguish good from evil. Accordingly, their mate selection is automatically designed to ensure that the strongest characteristics of both genders predominate. In humans, this is a conscious decision. Without God’s lawful pattern to choose a mate monogamously, we, too, represent the beasts of the field for worse, since our God-given intellect devises means to get more of those youthful animalistic (Psa 49:12) lusts incessantly pre-maritally, engendering God’s concept of whoredom.

Psa 73:20  As a dream when one awaketh; so, O Lord, when thou awakest, thou shalt despise their image. 
Psa 73:21  Thus my heart was grieved, and I was pricked in my reins [away from adulterous lusts]. 
Psa 73:22  So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before thee.

2Pe 2:12  But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things [Such as the sanctity of marriage] that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption; 
2Pe 2:13  And shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you; 
2Pe 2:14  Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children:

The unfolding theme of “Imprinting” is phenomenally central to the Song of Solomon and explains why Solomon knew from experience that a Bride (H3618) should ideally be young.

Bride H3618 – 1. bride, daughter-in-law a. daughter-in-law b. bride, young wife.

From H3634 – 1. to complete, perfect, make complete, make perfect a. (Qal) to perfect.

From H3615 – 1. to accomplish, cease, consume, determine, end, fail, finish, be complete, be accomplished, be ended, be at an end, be finished, be spent a. (Qal) 1. to be complete, be at an end.

Solomon, with his relatively infinite God-given wisdom, like the Elect of God seeking truth, is determined to ‘count one by one, the account’ of any problem to find the truth (Ecc 7:27).

Pro 25:2  It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.

We will conclude Part 8a here, and in the next and final study on breasts, Part 8b, hopefully with a full understanding of our breasts’ significance in ‘imprinting’ for our expected end.

Jer 29:11  For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. 
Jer 29:12  Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. 
Jer 29:13  And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. 

Lamentations – Lam 1:1-22 Part 1, The Lord was as an enemy

The Lord was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel, he hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds, and hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation – (Lam 2:5)

[Study Aired August 12, 2023]

The Lord’s direct juxtaposition of marital intimacies with positive and negative spiritual associations is undeniable. It is a major, if not the underpinning theme of the Bible, that sub-themes radiate. Marriage’s beautifully complementing sexuality is a temporary God-given aberration of the spirit of God, designed in mankind to reflect righteous and unrighteous spiritual connections. It all points to our deepest honor and respect for the order and belief in God’s headship.

At the end of the One Thousand-Year reign with the rod of iron, our sexuality is redundant ~ finished  with its assignment (Gal 3:15-28)

Every study’s purposeful and hopeful outcome is the ‘terrible blue crystal’ clarity. It started in Eden with nakedness and concludes with us clothed in lightning-white clothing.

Mat 28:3 His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow: 

Rom 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

The book of Lamentations results from fickle Israel being against her Husband ever since leaving Egypt. When life is joyful and rich, we are powerfully inclined to celebrate with friends, and opposite-sex friends are always a part of the mix, or a spouse particularly offers greater righteous sensual celebrations. Unrighteous celebrations resulted in the “daughter of Judah” mournfully sitting alone, a widow. Yet, she always pleases herself to ‘snuff up the wind in her season’ (Jer 2:24) to reclaim the Lord’s name to console her lamentations. So, the dissolute and bitter cycle goes around and around until the Lord kisses us with the ‘wind’ (spirit) of His truth in the season when He pleases.

Celebration is fine if it glorifies our Husband. It results in us immersed in His breath of apples (Son 7:8).

Rom 14:6 He who regards the day regards it to the Lord; and he not regarding the day, does not regard it to the Lord. He who eats, eats to the Lord, for he gives God thanks; and he who does not eat, does not eat to the Lord, and gives God thanks.

The Book of Lamentations summarises our journey of disobedience and directs us to call on the Lord’s name for deliverance. Yet this book graphically highlights our utter inability to follow our Lord without God’s spirit. The last three verses of Lamentations reflect that bewildering dilemma.

Lam 5:20 Why do You forget us forever and forsake us the length of days? 
Lam 5:21 Return us to You, O Jehovah, and we will turn; renew our days as of old,
Lam 5:22 unless You have utterly rejected us; You are very angry against us. At our Lord’s table, let us give thanks and glorify him.

Perplexed, we throw up our hands and ask why He has forsaken us, then, we want to return to the riches that the flesh offered in Egypt and Babylon. Our demeanour is like King Agag coming ‘lightly’ before Samuel (1Sa 15), expecting Saul to overrule Samuel’s assurance of Agag’s death with a nod and wink for life ~ that our sins are nothing. We want to cajole the Lord’s anger into peace without our repentance.

Of course, with our Lord’s spirit within, we can conversely see those verses reflecting positively on a genuinely changed heart.

How Lonely Sits the City

Lam 1:1 How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary! 
Lam 1:2 She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her: all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies. 
Lam 1:3 Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude: she dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest: all her persecutors overtook her between the straits. 
Lam 1:4 The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts: all her gates are desolate: her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness. 
Lam 1:5 Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper; for the LORD hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: her children are gone into captivity before the enemy.
Lam 1:6 And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed: her princes are become like harts that find no pasture, and they are gone without strength before the pursuer. 
Lam 1:7 Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old, when her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her: the adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths. 
Lam 1:8 Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed: all that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.
Lam 1:9 Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end; therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter. O LORD, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself.
Lam 1:10 The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things: for she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary, whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation. 
Lam 1:11 All her people sigh, they seek bread; they have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul: see, O LORD, and consider; for I am become vile. 
Lam 1:12 Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the LORD hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger. 
Lam 1:13 From above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them: he hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back: he hath made me desolate and faint all the day. 
Lam 1:14 The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand: they are wreathed, and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall, the Lord hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up. 
Lam 1:15 The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me: he hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men: the Lord hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress. 
Lam 1:16 For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me: my children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed. 
Lam 1:17 Zion spreadeth forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her: the LORD hath commanded concerning Jacob, that his adversaries should be round about him: Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them. 
Lam 1:18 The LORD is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment: hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow: my virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.
Lam 1:19 I called for my lovers, but they deceived me: my priests and mine elders gave up the ghost in the city, while they sought their meat to relieve their souls. 
Lam 1:20 Behold, O LORD; for I am in distress: my bowels are troubled; mine heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled: abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death. 
Lam 1:21 They have heard that I sigh: there is none to comfort me: all mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it: thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called, and they shall be like unto me. 
Lam 1:22 Let all their wickedness come before thee; and do unto them, as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions: for my sighs are many, and my heart is faint. 

Interpretations:

The term “daughter of Judah” and “daughter of Zion” are one and the same; she is us who are becoming a faithful city after being harlots. Unfaithfulness is our failure to righteously walk our sexual correlations spiritually.

Isa 1:21 How has the faithful city become a harlot? It was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it, but now murderers.

Lam 1:1 How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary! [Tributary H4522 –  1. gang or body of forced labourers, task-workers, labour band or gang, forced service, task-work, serfdom, tributary, tribute, levy, taskmasters, discomfited From H4549 – 1. to dissolve, melt a. to waste way 2. to faint, grow fearful 3. wasted, worthless]

The spiritually discriminating saint will know that “city” was Old Jerusalem with the odd mournful owl now roosting in her once beautiful, now decimated, stained glass arches. The echoes of lying foxes yammer in the night, the sermons long gone.

No woman is more lonely than our former Babylonian selves moaning and groaning that we are not loved as we once sat lonely, waiting for our Lord to work physical wonders for sensual joy.

Isa 13:19 And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees’ excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.
Isa 13:20 It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there.
Isa 13:21 But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs [hairy goat. To storm; shiver; dread] shall dance there.
Isa 13:22 And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons [lizards; serpents] in their pleasant palaces: and her time is near to come, and her days shall not be prolonged.

Rev 11:8 And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city [you and me; Old Jerusalem], which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt [Babylon], where also our Lord was crucified [within].

In verse one, she becomes “as a widow”, but she doesn’t believe she is one! She doesn’t realise that His death cancelled the marriage covenant, yet she still worships the dead Christ through her dead works of the flesh and doesn’t know it.

Rev 18:7 How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.

Luk 9:58 And Jesus said unto him, Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests [in Old Jerusalem within]; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.
Luk 9:59 And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. 
Luk 9:60 Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God. 
Luk 9:61 And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee; but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home at my house. 
Luk 9:62 And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.

Lam 1:2 She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her: all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies.

In August 2015, I wept sore in the night (as no doubt we all did) with tears upon my cheeks without a lover among any of my imagined friends whom I thought wanted to see the Lord’s truth; they all dealt treacherously with me and abandoned me ~ well, I abandoned them by not realising that it was the beginning of me coming out of Babylon and them rejecting my strange breath.

Job 19:15 They that dwell in mine house, and my maids, count me for a stranger: I am an alien in their sight. 
Job 19:16 I called my servant, and he gave me no answer; I intreated him with my mouth. 
Job 19:17 My breath [the newness of the Lord’s word] is strange to my wife, though I intreated for the children’s sake of mine own body. 
Job 19:18 Yea, young children [my own children unconsciously and my disappearing sins in my land] despised me; I arose, and they spake against me. 
Job 19:19  All my inward friends abhorred me: and they whom I loved are turned against me. 

Joh 15:18 If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. 
Joh 15:19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

We can glory in those hatreds, not because we are masochistic, but because it identifies us with Christ and the world’s hatred for His commands which we follow.

Mat 19:29 And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.

When we are dragged out of Babylon and look back, not lustfully but astonished for having been strongly deluded (2Th 2:1-12), our weeping turns into Shulamite joy. We escape the slavery of Sodom, Egypt and Babylon that is the old Daughter of Zion in the flesh, and in the new light of the word, take pleasure in afflictions and fiery trials that we know will build gold in the Lord’s temple.

Lam 1:3 Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude: she dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest: all her persecutors overtook her between the straits. 
Lam 1:4 The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts: all her gates are desolate: her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.

The priests of God, the Lord’s budding Elect, Judah, have gone into captivity in Christ. None of our former friends in Babylon come to ‘the Jesus’ table, His feast, to eat the true bread of life. We eat up the “little book” of which John in Revelations speaks and are given to understand its bitterness that dramatically turns into joy. All that the daughter of Judah experienced (us before being dragged to Christ) was a bitter experience of evil flesh that the new daughter, the Bride of Christ, is filled with the joy of understanding that is better than wine.

Rev 10:9 And I went to the angel and said to him, Give me the little book. And he said to me, Take it and eat it up, and it will make your belly bitter, but it will be sweet as honey in your mouth.
Rev 10:10 And I took the little book out of the angel’s hand and ate it up. And it was sweet as honey in my mouth, and as soon as I had eaten it, my belly was made bitter.
Rev 10:11 And he said to me, You must prophesy again before many peoples and nations and tongues and kings.

The old Zion within is done mourning and lying back on her couch, waiting for her lovers to awaken her torrid desires yet remaining bewilderedly torpid. Our virgins within are tearfully afflicted, wondering why our husband in the flesh is bitter. In time, we are given to experience our spiritual Husband’s arousing kisses (Son 1:2-7). The culmination of those kisses His wife gives to her children in the chastising resurrection to judgment.

Lam 1:5 Her enemies have become as chief; her haters are at ease; for Jehovah has afflicted her for the multitude of her sins. Her children have gone, captive before the enemy.

The stolen waters of fornication are sweet until the next day when we as a woman realise our folly. In contemporary terms, we cry ‘rape’, and the next morning feel stabbed through our liver with a dart, and we now sue our cohort for his violation of our imagined purity.

Deu 22:23 If a girl who is a virgin is engaged to a husband, and a man finds her in the city and lies with her, 
Deu 22:24 then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them with stones that they die; the girl because she did not cry out in the city, and the man because he has humbled his neighbor’s wife. So you shall put away evil from among you. 

Isa 30:1 Woe to the rebellious sons, says Jehovah, who make advice, but not of Me; and who cover with a covering, but not of My Spirit, that they add sin to sin; 
Isa 30:2 those who set out to go down to Egypt and have not asked at My mouth; to take refuge in the strength of Pharaoh and to trust in the shadow of Egypt! 
Isa 30:3 Therefore the strength of Pharaoh shall be your shame, and the trust in the shadow of Egypt shall be your curse.

Lam 1:6 And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty has departed. Her rulers have become like bucks: they find no pasture, and they have gone without strength before the pursuer.

Rachel is, in type, the “daughter of Zion” who felt her beauty had departed. Her sister, Leah, ruled humiliation over her for being barren. Leah’s ten “bucks” in Babylon waxed fat in their green pasture, not realising their food was to become moldy. Rachel, as we sometimes do, felt defeated and unloved before Leah (Babylonian family and friends), her pursuer.

Like Rachel, we impulsively strike out at our Lord for Him not validating our beauty by our measures; and imagine ourselves barren for not changing more rapidly than we expect. We easily forget that Christ is building His temple within us and awakening our love in His timing.

Gen 30:1 And when Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister. And she said to Jacob, Give me sons, or else I will die.
Gen 30:2 And Jacob’s anger was kindled against Rachel. And he said, Am I in God’s stead, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb? 
Gen 30:3 And she said, Behold my slave woman Bilhah; go in to her, and she shall bear upon my knees, and yea, let me be built up from her, me also.

Lam 1:7 In the days of her affliction and her wandering Jerusalem remembered all her desirable things from previous days; when her people fell into the hand of the foe; and there is no ally for her. The foes saw her; they laughed at her annihilation.

As carnally expressed in the prelude, we remember our Vashti-like beauty and, too late, don’t see the coming rejection.

There will be nothing more humiliating for us to experience than to revel in our God-given beauty without bringing forth righteous children and thus miss out on the First Resurrection. Our unconverted family and friends (foes) will laugh at our disgrace. We will thus be naked, and the world will see death beneath our skirts and the desecration of our orchard, our vineyard that brought forth rotten fruit. We will not be comforted!

Mat 2:18 “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.”

The following verses all speak about our fornication we didn’t reject. Like Solomon showing the Queen of Sheba all the temple treasury, it is not wise to flaunt our inheritance before family, friends and dogs.

Lam 1:8  Jerusalem has grievously sinned, therefore she has been removed. All knowing her despise her because they saw her nakedness; yea, she sighs and turns backward.
Lam 1:9 Her uncleanness is in her skirts; she did not remember her end, and has gone down astoundingly. There is no comforter for her. O Jehovah, behold my affliction, for the enemy has magnified himself. 
Lam 1:10 The enemy has spread out his hand upon all her desirable things; for she has seen the nations enter her holy place, whom You commanded that they should not enter into Your congregation.
Lam 1:11 All her people sigh; they seek bread. They have given their desirable things for food to relieve the soul. See, O Jehovah, and look on me, for I have become vile.
Lam 1:12 Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Behold and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow which is done to me, with which Jehovah has afflicted me in the day of His fierce anger.
Lam 1:13 From above He has sent fire into my bones and it has laid them low. He has spread a net for my feet; He has turned me back; He has made me amazed and faint all the day.

Thankfully, our Lord does comfort us by sending fire into our bones. Our heart was a snare and net and hands like bands (Ecc 7:26) for our Lord that He has reversed, and we look back in amazement and temporarily faint at our humiliation. However, our Lord will patiently raise us up into heavenly places.

Jas 4:9 Be afflicted, and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness. 
Jas 4:10 Be humbled before the Lord, and He will lift you up.

Joh 16:21 The woman has grief when she bears, because her hour has come. But when she brings forth the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, because of the joy that a man is born into the world. 
Joh 16:22 And therefore you now have sorrow. But I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.

Lam 1:14 The yoke of my transgressions is bound by His hand; they intertwine; they rise on my neck. He has made my strength to falter; Jehovah has delivered me into their hands. I am not able to rise up.
Lam 1:15 Jehovah has trampled all my mighty ones in my midst; He has called a gathering against me to crush my young men. Jehovah has trod the virgin daughter of Judah, as in a winepress.
Lam 1:16 For these I weep; my eye, my eye runs down with water, because the comforter who could refresh my soul is far from me. My sons are desolated because the enemy prevails.

Our bones being burned with fire and bodies trodden in the winepress until our blood runs deep unto the horse’s bridle sounds terrifying; it is terrifying to the babes in Christ. It all is part of our dragging from exile in Babylon.

Even though we are a bunch of harlots in Babylon, our coming out of her at our Lord’s hand causes Him to attribute virginity to us. Just as the faithful city becomes a harlot, she becomes a virgin.

Lam 1:17 Zion [daughter old Jerusalem] spreads forth her hands; none is comforting to me; Jehovah has commanded concerning Jacob that his enemies should be all around him; Jerusalem has become as an impure thing among them.
Lam 1:18 Jehovah is righteous, for I have rebelled against His command. I beseech you, all peoples, hear and behold my sorrow. My virgins and my young men went into exile.

The Lord’s people do get immeasurable comfort from reflecting upon our former lamentations when we return to Him with our entire heart.

Isa 1:18 Come now, and let us reason together, says Jehovah; though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be like wool. 
Isa 1:19 If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; 
Isa 1:20 but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured with the sword; for the mouth of Jehovah has spoken. 

Jer 29:11 For I know the purposes which I am purposing for you, says Jehovah; purposes of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.
Jer 29:12 Then you shall call on Me, and you shall go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. 
Jer 29:13 And you shall seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. 
Jer 29:14 And I will be found by you, says Jehovah; and I will turn away your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places where I have driven you, says Jehovah. And I will bring you again into the place from where I caused you to be exiled.

Lam 1:19 I called for my lovers, but they deceived me; my priests and my elders expired in the city while they sought food for them to bring back their life.

How spiritually poetically true is verse 19?! All sensual joys of the flesh deceive us to lust for more. We don’t want to consider that they are all vanity of vanities (Ecc 1:2-11) as Solomon ultimately ‘lamented’. Yet, that is the only dirty trough water (Jas 3:11-13) we had in Babylon as we dipped our sop in the blood of Christ’s death, ignorantly thinking we were saved by the letter of the law. 

Lord willing, let’s not be like Judas and Queen Vashti learning their fate too late as their inward parts dissolved. It is incredibly wise to authentically acknowledge our sins before our accusor before we mourn our house of death. Nonetheless, mourning that produces righteousness is infinitely superior to mirth in a house of revelling.

Ecc 7:3 Sorrow is better than laughter; for by the sadness of the face the heart is made better. 
Ecc 7:4 The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of laughter. 
Ecc 7:5 It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise than for a man to hear the song of fools. 

Lam 1:20 Behold, O Jehovah, for I am in trouble; my inward parts ferment; my heart is turned within me, for I have grievously rebelled. On the outside the sword bereaves; in the house it is as death.
Lam 1:21 They hear that I sigh; there is none to comfort me. All my enemies have heard my evil; they are glad that You have done it. You will bring the day that You have called, and they shall be like me.
Lam 1:22 Let all their wickedness come before You; and do to them as You have done to me for all my transgressions. For my sighs are many, and my heart is faint. 

The initial dreadful lamenting of our humiliations matures into gladness since we are given to see the future and the Lord’s reasoning behind His tailored trials. By waiting and enduring the pain and suffering, we will look upon our inherited family, the world, in the Resurrection to Judgment with Joseph’s mixture of emotions. We will be ecstatic that the world’s children are nearing their spiritual birth, yet, no doubt, a little angry against their sin, as the Lord was against ours.

Indeed, “the Lord was as an enemy,” and he still is anytime we fall short of His commands, teaching [i.e. chastening – paideuō] us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world – Tit 2:11.

Rom 5:20 Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, [scourging, chastening, rebuking] grace did much more abound:

Heb 12:5  And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him:
Heb 12:6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
Heb 12:7 If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?
Heb 12:8  But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.

Amo 6:1 Woe to them that are at ease in Zion, and trust in the mountain of Samaria, which are named chief of the nations, to whom the house of Israel came!

Joh 15:15 No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master does. But I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.

A Mystery Hidden from the Ages and Generations: How Not to be Bitter Against One’s Wife and How not to Make a Husband Bitter – Part 1

[Study Aired July 15, 20 23]

Col 3:18 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.
Col 3:19 Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them.

In the beautiful account of Jacob lighting eyes upon Rachel for the first time, his response was to spontaneously burst into tears; such was his flood of profound emotions for having found a guaranteed virtuous woman to be his wife; to top off the connection, she was breathtakingly beautiful… besides, she obviously loved tending her father’s sheep in the sensorily arousing outdoors. That exhilarating imagery is enough to make any man nostalgically weep ~ it did Christ, who created all biological and spiritually related emotions that motivate ravishings (Son 4:9-11; Prov 5:19).

Gen 29:1 Then Jacob went on his journey, and came into the land of the people of the east. 
Gen 29:2 And he looked, and behold a well in the field, and, lo, there were three flocks of sheep lying by it; for out of that well they watered the flocks: and a great stone was upon the well’s mouth. 
Gen 29:3 And thither were all the flocks gathered: and they rolled the stone from the well’s mouth, and watered the sheep, and put the stone again upon the well’s mouth in his place. 
Gen 29:4 And Jacob said unto them, My brethren, whence be ye? And they said, Of Haran are we. 
Gen 29:5 And he said unto them, Know ye Laban the son of Nahor? And they said, We know him. 
Gen 29:6 And he said unto them, Is he well? And they said, He is well: and, behold, Rachel his daughter cometh with the sheep. 
Gen 29:7 And he said, Lo, it is yet high day, neither is it time that the cattle should be gathered together: water ye the sheep, and go and feed them.
Gen 29:8 And they said, We cannot, until all the flocks be gathered together, and till they roll the stone from the well’s mouth; then we water the sheep.
Gen 29:9 And while he yet spake with them, Rachel came with her father’s sheep: for she kept them. 
Gen 29:10 And it came to pass, when Jacob saw Rachel the daughter of Laban his mother’s brother, and the sheep of Laban his mother’s brother, that Jacob went near, and rolled the stone from the well’s mouth, and watered the flock of Laban his mother’s brother. 
Gen 29:11 And Jacob kissed Rachel, and lifted up his voice, and wept.

Upon seeing Rachel’s bright-eyed and sunny personality, Jacob’s unabashed howls expressed unspeakable joy and relief that such a beautiful creature existed. His unmasking no doubt cascaded Rachel with rapidly changing and enchanting emotions of surprise, tenderness and reverence, all amplifying the beauty in her face, only to make Jacob wail a little more. I’ll confidently wager that neither slept much that night, them having stayed up late excitedly chatting. Speaking from a man’s point of view, in disbelief, I would have lain brightly awake through the dawn just as Boaz’s commitment was for Ruth. The male-savvy Naomi knew that Boaz wouldn’t rest until his inherently protective masculine duty was performed for the particularly comely, virtuous young woman. 

I encourage you to please read all of Ruth 3 for Boaz’s and Ruth’s beautiful correlations to Jacob and Rachel, both parties individually representing Christ and his Bride.

Playful Shulamite-like poetic intimacy is the most provocative connection for a courting couple, and if continued in marriage, it is a key to supreme happiness. It is an elegant teasing game masterfully controlled and escalated by the fiancée or wife’s feminine charm and subtle delicacies, entrancing her lover. If ever a woman had righteous and powerful rulership over her husband, it is with that method! Jacob, Boaz, Christ and no righteous or unbelieving man could rest with those enviable traits alive in his home.

Of supreme importance, note in Jacob and Rachel’s connections that he meets her in the “field” to the “east”, tending her “Father’s sheep”. Spiritually he represents Christ and Rachel, His Bride, in the “high day” light of Him courting and connecting with her and magnifying her arousal for his plan of salvation, having rolled away the “stone” from the “well’s” mouth, washing her by the word (Eph 5:26) for her to wash the rest of the world for one of the two resurrections. Jacob and Rachel, Boaz and Ruth had outstanding sensual (physical) connections Solomon and the Shulamite epitomised spirituality for Christ and his Bride.

The intrinsic problem is with the connection! Worldly sensual connections are ordained to grow tiresome, particularly for a wife and by the curse. 

Joh 6:63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.
Joh 6:64 But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him.

All wives (as are husbands spiritually to Christ) are predestined to “betray” their husbands ‘whose hearts are snares and nets, and their hands are bands’ for the pre-marriage guarantee of bedroom intimacy, just as old Israel promised Jehovah, and grow weary.

Ecc 7:26 And I find more bitter than death the woman, whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands as bands: whoso pleaseth God shall escape from her; but the sinner shall be taken by her. 

Christ is a wonderful stumbling block (1Co 1:23); He found relief from bitterness in death to fulfill His dream for us. And so…

“The dream is one”! This study aims to energise wives and husbands with aspirations for a dream marriage. It is hoped to show wives how to attain a connection with their husbands that almost every girl and wife since creation has dreamed of and torn down with her own hands (Pro 14:1). It likewise is hoped to show husbands how to be Christ so that their wives can realize their dreams.

It is only the Bride of Christ who has been electrified by the Shulamite’s God-given daydreaming who understands her past sluggish bedroom intimacies are the direct result of her curse from Eden. It is the staggering reason behind husbands’ bitterness against their wives and our Lord’s (designed) hatred for his first wife.

The heavenly pattern is clearly seen in the order of courtship by our husband, Christ choosing us to be His Bride. Her job, her high calling, is to enthusiastically respond and incite arousal in Him for her more profound conception and resulting mutually exhilarated joy.

Joh 15:16 You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you and ordained you that you should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain; that whatever you shall ask of the Father in My name, He may give it to you.
Joh 15:17 These things I command you, that you love one another.

Col 2:17 For these are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ. 

Following are two verses with tremendous implications for an outstanding marriage. Embedded therein hinges all marital dissonance founded on not having a spiritual connection.

Gen 4:1 And Adam knew [H3045] Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.
Gen 4:2 And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. 

We don’t necessarily have to look up the word “knew” to understand that Adam and Eve were sensually intimate. Yet, if we don’t, Satan jams a broom handle into the spokes of our marital pushbike, and the alliance goes over the handlebars; and that is precisely what happens to all marriages.

H3045 – Knew
Yada`
– Phonetic: yaw-dah’
– Definition: 
to know
(Qal)
to know 1a
to know, learn to know 1a
to perceive 1a
to perceive and see, find out and discern 1a
to discriminate, distinguish 1a
to know by experience 1a
to recognise, admit, acknowledge, confess 1a
to consider
to know, be acquainted with
to know (a person carnally)
to know how, be skillful in
to have knowledge, be wise
(Niphal)
to be made known, be or become known, be revealed
to make oneself known
to be perceived
to be instructed 
(Piel) to cause to know
(Poal) to cause to know
(Pual) to be known 
known, one known, acquaintance (participle)
(Hiphil) to make known, declare
(Hophal) to be made known
(Hithpael) to make oneself known, reveal oneself

Nothing in that translation says anything about sexual intimacies (except passively h. 2. to know (a person carnally); therefore, if a wife authentically wanted to ‘know’ her husband, she would make it her intimate ‘job’ to discover every minute detail about his mind, inciting his (Christ ~ spiritually) classically designed male body and mind to respond. Traditionally since he (and she) is almost guaranteed not to know ‘the’ Christ, that is where the broom handle is unwittingly employed.

However, let’s see how subtly “knowing” a wife or husband directly relates to spirited bedroom intimacies.

1Co 7:2 Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. 
1Co 7:3 Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. 
1Co 7:4 The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife.
1Co 7:5 Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency.
1Co 7:6 But I speak this by permission, and not of commandment. 

Permission G4774 from G48863 and G1097 meaning 1. to learn to know, come to know, get a knowledge of, perceive, feel a. to become known 2. to know, understand, perceive, have knowledge of a. to understand b. to know 3. Jewish idiom for sexual intercourse between a man and a woman< 4. to become acquainted with, to know.

The Bride’s (a wife’s) ‘job’ is the spiritual application of the highly sensual physical! If she doesn’t daily build her house with ravishing eyes (Son 4:9) to “provoke” her husband to good works (how dumb-easy is the biological application?), she is no different to that other dull woman from Mt. Agar (Gal 4:24-25).

Heb 10:22 Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.

Eph 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
Eph 5:26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the [highly spiritually arousing washing] of water by the word.

Continuing…

Heb 10:23 Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;) 
Heb 10:24 And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: 
Heb 10:25 Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching. 
Heb 10:26 For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, 
Heb 10:27 But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.

Put simply, a husband’s ‘job’ is to know Christ; a wife’s ‘job’ is to converse submissively and enthusiastically engage him and be washed by the word of God. It is the most biologically and spiritually arousing act not known to mankind other than the Bride! With pounding hearts, it is the discovery of “hidden treasure”.

Mat 13:44 Again, the kingdom of Heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which when a man has found it, he hides it, and for the joy of it goes and sells all that he has, and buys that field.

I pray that men and women in the Body never regress to our former dismissive unaroused state and buy this field.

The most profoundly satisfying physical marriage relationship anywhere on earth is only found among a very few in the Elect of God, who have all the keys to the kingdom confined to the one outstanding spiritual act of being warmly and deeply kissed by her Lord. That enthusiastic physical interaction between a husband and his wife directly corresponds spiritually to the meaning of a stunning marriage and, ultimately, eternal life with Christ as our inheritance!

Sure, some Babylonian Christians know that mother Eve was given by the Lord to commit her sin and be liable to the inevitable curse, yet, they mostly have no whit why a husband would be guaranteed to be bitter against his wife. Husbands likewise have no whit of understanding the equivalent curse on them for being bitter against their wives! Accordingly, this study hopefully benefits those contemplating marriage and ‘resurrects to life’ those existing marriages, particularly for us all, spiritually.

Mat 16:16 And Simon Peter answered and said, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. 
Mat 16:17 Jesus answered and said to him, You are blessed, Simon, son of Jonah, for flesh and blood did not reveal it to you, but My Father in Heaven.

Peter represents the Church upon the “little rock” (Petros); he was compared to Christ and the foundation of the Church. The Father only reveals His truth through his Elect.

Mat 16:18 And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 
Mat 16:19 And I will give the keys of the kingdom of Heaven to you. [The Elect only] And whatever you may bind on Earth shall occur, having been bound in Heaven, and whatever you may loose on Earth shall occur, having been [already, before the foundation of the world] loosed in Heaven. 

1Co 3:21 Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours;
1Co 3:22 Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas [Peter], or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours;

Those who have not been given the keys to the kingdom of heaven are those who cannot possibly accept the plain statement here in 1 Corinthians 3 that even “the world (and) death” are ours and that we must all live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, including “yes, even the wicked for the day of evil” (Pro 16:4) in each of us.

Those who have taken away the ‘key of knowledge’ of how to enter into the kingdom of heaven will never agree that “all things are yours” really means “all things ~ the world, death, things present and things to come.” 100% of “all things” are for the Elect alone only in this age; others are not being judged as yet, since the world does not participate in the First Resurrection. Those who refuse this key to the kingdom of heaven also go as far as to hinder those entering the kingdom of heaven. “…Ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered” (Luk 11:52). Even those sad words are “in me, that is in my flesh.”

Rom 7:18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.

The Shulamite has been given all the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven rolled into one master key by her single-eyed focus on her Lord. With bright-eyed devotedness, she actively goes out of her way to spiritually inflame intense desire in her Lord for their mutual ecstasy, eager in measured anticipatory arousals for “when he pleases” (Son 8:4).

Son 4:9 You have ravished My heart, My sister, My spouse; you have ravished My heart with one of your eyes, with one chain of your neck.

The Lord slowly awakened the love of his Bride precisely ‘when he pleased’ at His death on the cross. There is no greater Shulamite awakening and inflaming of her love than today and increasing every day until His return! (Matthew 25 – the Ten Virgins)

The Lord made mature young women, particularly in their bloom of youth, devastatingly alluring to men. Even if some women are not instantly noticeably ravishing, they all have nuances of exquisite intrigue for the particularly attentive male. Almost all women fail to see those fleeting appeals that only a male sees, and even other males cannot see what a particularly discerning male loves in the girl of his watchfulness. She simply goes about being female in the body she was given, mostly innocently oblivious to what arouses males (a blight she inherits from dull-eyed mothers and elder women of influence). She’d be deeply intrigued, for sure, if she knew, yet, wrinkle her pretty nose up to understand its provocation to stare in the mirror to find the source for its amplification and frustrating failure. More likely, she grotesquely exaggerates what she perceives as sexually alluring, believing that ‘in-your-face’ sensual expressions trawl a larger catch for sorting… and she does.

All men and women sit somewhere in the long spectrum of lust that waxes and wanes in unrighteous lust; none are exempt. It is just that within that very broad band lies degrees of every dissolute thought and action imaginable. And by the design of the flesh, both men and women, particularly those ignorant of moral decency, lean toward exhausting their sensual titillations mostly secretly, yet in these end-times, becoming more and more pridefully triumphant.

The Lord made every aspect of feminine energy, those flashes of exquisite beauty that words defy, and the resulting male poetry of a million impassioned expressions for men’s endless fascination and intense focus. It is what mesmerises males to utter frustration of nonattainment, and many mournfully submit to pornography, either mentally or online. More women than those who admit do likewise. As an apparent statistical fact, today, it is hard to believe that women now watch more porn than men,  mostly for female sensuality vastly more than male. Ironic, isn’t it, that both men and women worship the Ashteroth^H6252.

Original: עשׁתּרת עשׁתּרות
– Transliteration: `Ashtarowth
– Phonetic: ash-taw-roth’
– Definition: Ashtaroth or Astaroth = star n pr f deity 
false Goddesses in the Canaanite religion, usually related to fertility cult n pr loc 
a city in Bashan east of the Jordan given to manasseh
Origin: H6251 –  1. ewe, flock, increase, young
From H6238 – 1. to be or become rich or wealthy, enrich, pretend to be rich.

Gen 14:5 And in the fourteenth year Chedorlaomer [Phonetic: ked-or-law-o’-mer] and the kings that were with him came and struck the giants in Ashteroth [ash-ter-oth’ kar-nah’-yim] Karnaim, and the Zuzim [zoo-zeem’] in Ham, and the Emim [ay-meem’] in Shaveh Kiriathaim [shaw-vay’ kir-yaw-thah’-yim],

There are plenty of derivatives of the term, Ashteroth or Ashtaroth, all meaning the worship of the female as a goddess.  You may like to check out this link. Astarte – Ancient Diety

Interestingly, the Ashteroth are of the Nephilim, the giants with which both Israel and we must contend. Fewer giants are ever more outstanding than the worship of women who rule over men. Women’s rulership over men and men’s most willing abdication of headship is the most damning sin of all, since, spiritually, it symbolises our imagined dethroning both the Father and Christ for our godship sitting on His throne (Rev 13, Rev 17, Rev 19).

Yet, the sexual vitality of a woman is the result of her overall feminine dynamism. Should she amplify authentic gentleness, kindness, softness in appearance and voice, peace, joy, temperance, gorgeous hair, her entire body and submissive mind (Gal 5) when devoted non-sexually to all men, she becomes an Esther, hopefully for one man’s unspeakable delight and glory for all the world to ultimately see ~ such is the Shulamite, the Bride, is to Christ.

The one-time protection of women for their purity for monogamous marriage is a cornerstone of a nation’s strength. Today, all focus is a flood of destroying the God-designed dynamism of our beautiful women, whose own hands (mind bogglingly) abet her destruction. Even though the following verse is for spiritual focus, its outward “natural” application today is immensely destructive to the glorious vitality of beautiful femininity.

Rev 12:15 And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood.

Today, her demise is in freefall, and tragically she is carried away by the flood of lies. Her beauty is destroyed by her shrill cry demanding respect for her power, strength and independence. No wonder today we have a major Western push for ‘men going their own way’ (MGTOW) since they never wish to be enslaved to that kind of woman ~ Christ didn’t but was.

Women’s feminine energy in the Body of Christ is sanctified, protected and nourished for that one ‘man’ whose teeth (his flocks) rest at noon through the peace that their animated spiritual conversation excites in the full brightness of the Son.

Son 1:7 Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon: for why should I [the Shulamite] be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions? (More exposition on that verse later)

Nothing is more sexually arousing for a male than those mentioned above delectable female attributes with sparkling eyes authentically and singularly devoted to him at noon. For the spiritually void young man, her endless beauty seems to him melancholically as unattainable as a fictitious Shulamite. Shockingly, she is much closer than he’ll ever know!

Joh 17:15 I pray not that thou shouldest take them [the Bride] out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.
Joh 17:16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. 
Joh 17:17 Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth [by ‘the washing’ of the Lord’s word]

It is understandable, yet a little desolate, that demurely inherent people tend to shift uncomfortably when the sexual “natural” that comes first corresponds to the spiritual. Almost daily, I ask most passionately of our Father to give me Christ’s kisses of deep spiritual understanding to be spiritually aroused and blazingly ‘turned on’, ravished, inflamed for Christ, my [the Body’s] husband and Lord, and for him to instantly delight in the beauty He is creating in me. There shouldn’t be one person in the Body of Christ who doesn’t know what intense sexual arousal feels like. If there is such a person, he is missing the full impact of its spiritual meaning. Does he think Christ figuratively closed his eyes and other spiritual sensories when he designed our incredible body, holding His breath and averting his eyes because it was all just too gross? (Php 2:5-8). It is intensely erotic for a husband whose wife, with unrestrained elegance and skilful planning, blesses him with her mind and body focused on him ~ so, too, is Christ spiritually. Subsequently, all things literally become hers.

Psa 139:13 For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb. 
Psa 139:14 I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. 
Psa 139:15 My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. 
Psa 139:16 Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. 

1Pe 3:7 Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.

The curse from Eden immediately diverges a wife from her husband for them to be one flesh, body and spirit. When given to honour and submit to her head, a righteous husband, she captures the virtuously arousing nature of her God-given femininity. Her determination to exercise physical and spiritual enchantment in the home and for her husband and family immediately melds her and her husband as one spirit in Christ. That is the most powerful form of rulership she has that is infinitely greater than what her woke feminist kin in Babylon can only jealously lust for and deepen their ugly expressions.

Jud 1:12 These people are filthy minded, and by their shameful and selfish actions they spoil the meals you eat together. They are like clouds blown along by the wind, but never bringing any rain. They are like leafless trees, uprooted and dead, and unable to produce fruit. 
Jud 1:13 Their shameful deeds show up like foam on wild ocean waves. They are like wandering stars forever doomed to the darkest pits of hell.

Let’s explore why and how husbands become bitter against their wives and, if possible, Christ symbolically bitter against both.

The Bride of Christ alone has spiritually been given those keys as soundly understood in the study, the Song of Solomon. The Shulamite in the Song of Solomon was electrified to physically discover her marital ‘resurrection of life’ that her 1,000 sisters in Solomon’s palace could never discover. Even with Solomon’s infinite wisdom, she remained immutably “black” to him in understanding her unsearchable wisdom, reflected in perfectly expressed sensual arousal of an unknown (spiritual) higher plane. He had all the God-given wisdom above all fleshly wisdom, yet vexingly, this Shulamite held the literal (vernacular) ‘holy grail’ for an unspeakably blissful marriage! 

Meanwhile, Solomon’s 1,000 wives remained dead in their ‘perfection’ of beauty above all women in Israel, expecting the King to worship them. With a pout for not understanding why their Lord (Solomon/Christ) would not grovel before their self-acclaimed excellence and allurement, they, including Leah (Jacob’s first wife – greater Israel) and Queen Vashti, fulfill the following verse:

Isa 4:1 And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, we will eat our own bread and wear our own clothing; only let us be called by your name, to take away our shame.

An overwhelming fact remains that stunning sexual intimacy between a husband and wife results from outstanding spiritual connections that further cause an already pretty woman to become her heart’s desire, exquisitely ravishing. By the Lord’s design, Leah, Jacob’s (ironically) supplanted wife, couldn’t understand that multiple sexual encounters resulting in many sons weren’t the ultimate criteria for love (Gen 29:31-35); spiritually, neither can the woman from Sinai whom the nominative 99.99% of the world’s men, physically and spiritually marry.

Of course, Queen Vashti was spectacularly put in her place for glorifying herself before all the nobles, princes and nation of Shushan (Persia) by not humbly coming at her Lord’s behest. She was too absorbed in elevating her beauty before the other women of King Ahasuerus’s (Phonetic: ‘akh-ash-vay-roshs’)  palace (Est 1:9). She certainly didn’t need a man, particularly her husband, to have his image symbolically glorified when she could artfully satisfy herself before the entire nation by taking such an outrageous objection to her husband’s bidding. Vashti was a classical feminist. Vashti’s and Israel’s haughty dismissiveness of her husband’s appetite for her tantalising beauty cost her royalty ~ so, too, does it cost the 99.99% of humanity’s majesty who narcissistically worship themselves in Babylonian Christianity. 

1Co 11:7 For a man indeed ought not to have his head covered, because he is the image and glory of God. But the woman is the glory of the man.

All Christian Babylonian women are effectively feminists since they rarely submit to their husbands as unto the Lord (Eph 5:22). The accepted spiritual fact in the Body of Christ is that all men in greater Babylon are spiritual ‘feminists’ since they utterly reject Christ, and subsequently and unwittingly are subject to the greater judgement.

Before Christ’s people were dragged out of Babylon, they subliminally knew something about the other Christ preached was amiss (a Solomon-like vexation for the Shulamite’s blackness and his inability to understand her spirit).

Just as Babylonish wives can’t submit to their Babylonish husbands; similarly, Christ-like wives have grave difficulty submitting to a Babylonish husband, and Christ-like husbands have “bitter” distress connecting to their Babylonian wives, as symbolised by our Lord’s hatred for His first wife’s rejection of His ‘kisses’ (Israel in the wilderness). Even though our Lord designed Israel’s rejection for His deep kisses of His word, all husbands are in lockstep with Christ for the same near-guaranteed experience that leaves them feeling defeated and betrayed. The unspiritual husband is exceedingly troubled by his wife’s dismissiveness of his physical arousal for her. More often, his exasperation plunges his marriage into deeper discord.

God commanded Hosea to marry a known harlot (Hosea 3) to parallel Israel’s harlotry while married to her Lord; for most husbands today, the most insidious off-shoot dynamics of harlotry is his wife’s inherent increasing disdain to be authentically aroused for his love ~ why should she?

Harlotary is traditionally solely financially interested in the transaction and mostly despises her client’s inflamed passion; she has perfected feigning exhilaration, hoping to speed up his zenith while secretly hoping, “Are you finished yet?” She artfully knows that a hint of that expression will extend or kill her client’s fulfillment of the transaction and is the last thing she desires.

Of course, not all harlot’s business (covenant) involves money since a Queen Vashti-like self-glorification in the eyes of the entire nation is superior currency involving tens of thousands of ‘customers’. She is the ultimate capitalist. Indeed, a wife’s rulership over her husband is a damnably damaging act to marriage.

That self-worship is further narrowed down and identified in our physical marriages in the Body of Christ, where the same self-worshiping act can linger and hide physically and, worse, spiritually.

The spiritual Esthers and Shulamites intrinsically know from experience that honouring a husband, not only for his headship but his God-given design, to be easily sensually inflamed will bless her more leisurely arousals. Her entire body is a tactile organ with many more sensory interconnections than her husband’s; they complement his God-given greater gift for spiritual connections and, thus, headship. She teaches her husband to be a skilled ‘harpist’ with her body, lingering on some notes and ingeniously plucking others. She delights in seeing his delight in her sensory beauty, deliberately designed to further enhance her awakening and is a major key to her ultimate joy, the Shulamite no doubt learned from her mother. (Son 8:1-7 – in fact, all of Son!). Her husband is designed to spiritually do likewise to her overwhelming joy. No wonder the Shulamite, with that understanding, fiercely protected her virginity for “when he pleases”!

Of course, our Lord is the master psalmist and musician for our colossal spiritual arousals, deftly timing every essential disturbance for our excitement for Him. Our submission to Him guarantees Him raising a chorus in us of honour.

Pro 15:33 The fear of the LORD is the instruction of wisdom; and before honour is humility. 

1Sa 2:30 Wherefore the LORD God of Israel saith, I said indeed that thy house, and the house of thy father, should walk before me for ever: but now the LORD saith, Be it far from me; for them that honour me I will honour, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed.

Our strong delusions in Babylon were mind boggling for the spiritually stimulated mind when we were given to see the cunning plan our Lord had designed for his Elect.

Mar 10:28 Then Peter began to say unto him [Jesus], Lo, we have left all, and have followed thee. 
Mar 10:29 And Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife [regardless of outstanding marital intimacies], or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel’s,
Mar 10:30 But he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time [coming age; and maybe now physically for the wise], houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life. 
Mar 10:31 But many that are first shall be last; and the last first.

[End of Part 1]

Jdg 11:23-40 And Jephthah Vowed a Vow unto the Lord

[Study Aired June 14, 2021]

Jdg 11:23  So now the LORD God of Israel hath dispossessed the Amorites from before his people Israel, and shouldest thou possess it? 
Jdg 11:24  Wilt not thou possess that which Chemosh thy god giveth thee to possess? So whomsoever the LORD our God shall drive out from before us, them will we possess. 
Jdg 11:25  And now art thou any thing better than Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab? did he ever strive against Israel, or did he ever fight against them, 
Jdg 11:26  While Israel dwelt in Heshbon and her towns, and in Aroer and her towns, and in all the cities that be along by the coasts of Arnon, three hundred years? why therefore did ye not recover them within that time? 
Jdg 11:27  Wherefore I have not sinned against thee, but thou doest me wrong to war against me: the LORD the Judge be judge this day between the children of Israel and the children of Ammon. 
Jdg 11:28  Howbeit the king of the children of Ammon hearkened not unto the words of Jephthah which he sent him. 
Jdg 11:29  Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah, and he passed over Gilead, and Manasseh, and passed over Mizpeh of Gilead, and from Mizpeh of Gilead he passed over unto the children of Ammon. 
Jdg 11:30  And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the LORD, and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands, 
Jdg 11:31  Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the LORD’S, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering. 
Jdg 11:32  So Jephthah passed over unto the children of Ammon to fight against them; and the LORD delivered them into his hands. 
Jdg 11:33  And he smote them from Aroer, even till thou come to Minnith, even twenty cities, and unto the plain of the vineyards, with a very great slaughter. Thus the children of Ammon were subdued before the children of Israel. 
Jdg 11:34  And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: and she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter. 
Jdg 11:35  And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me: for I have opened my mouth unto the LORD, and I cannot go back. 
Jdg 11:36  And she said unto him, My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth unto the LORD, do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth; forasmuch as the LORD hath taken vengeance for thee of thine enemies, even of the children of Ammon. 
Jdg 11:37  And she said unto her father, Let this thing be done for me: let me alone two months, that I may go up and down upon the mountains, and bewail my virginity, I and my fellows. 
Jdg 11:38  And he said, Go. And he sent her away for two months: and she went with her companions, and bewailed her virginity upon the mountains. 
Jdg 11:39  And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed: and she knew no man. And it was a custom in Israel, 
Jdg 11:40  That the daughters of Israel went yearly to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in a year. 

The first part of Judges Chapter 11 deals with how the Gileadites made Jephthah their leader to fight the Ammonites on their behalf. This is to assure us that if we win this war against the flesh, represented by the Ammonites, we shall reign with the Lord when the kingdoms of this world becomes the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ.

Rev 2:26  And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations:
Rev 2:27  And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father.
Rev 11:15  And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.

The second part of Judges Chapter 11 has to do with how Jephthah won the war with the Ammonites and how his only daughter was sacrificed because of the vow he had made to the Lord.

Jdg 11:23  So now the LORD God of Israel hath dispossessed the Amorites from before his people Israel, and shouldest thou possess it? 
Jdg 11:24  Wilt not thou possess that which Chemosh thy god giveth thee to possess? So whomsoever the LORD our God shall drive out from before us, them will we possess. 

It is the Lord who fights our battles for us. As long as He is our Lord God, we only possess what He has given to us. This fight against the old man within is the Lord’s fight. The key to possessing what our Lord has prepared for us is being in Him or abiding in Him. How do we abide in Him? Abiding in Him is obeying His words. As long as we are in Him, we are victorious. Without Him, we can do nothing.

Joh 15:4  Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.
Joh 15:5  I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

Jdg 11:25  And now art thou any thing better than Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab? did he ever strive against Israel, or did he ever fight against them,
Jdg 11:26  While Israel dwelt in Heshbon and her towns, and in Aroer and her towns, and in all the cities that be along by the coasts of Arnon, three hundred years? why therefore did ye not recover them within that time? 

In these verses, Jephthah posed a series of questions to the King of the Ammonites about why the Ammonites are now attacking Israel after several years of non-engagement. The answer to these questions is that at the start of our walk with Christ, we cannot engage the enemy within in a fight because we do not know even who our enemies are. The enemies within are therefore allowed to fallow for several years, signified by the three hundred years mentioned in verse 26. During this period, we are under the sway of the old man, or the flesh, and since we are not confronting them, there is peace between the old man and us. It is when our Lord comes to us that this peace between us is lost. Let’s hear what the Lord’s say about this:

Mat 10:34  Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
Mat 10:35  For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.
Mat 10:36  And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.

The Lord’s coming is when our eyes begin to open and our ears begin to hear. That is when the enemy within is brought to the fore, and it starts to contend with us to maintain its dominance over us. This fight is how to walk in the spirit, which means living by the word of God. That is the only way we can resist (fight) the enemy within which is the lust of the flesh.

Gal 5:16  This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.
Gal 5:17  For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.
Gal 5:18  But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.

Jdg 11:27  Wherefore I have not sinned against thee, but thou doest me wrong to war against me: the LORD the Judge be judge this day between the children of Israel and the children of Ammon.
Jdg 11:28  Howbeit the king of the children of Ammon hearkened not unto the words of Jephthah which he sent him.

In order to fulfill the prophesy regarding this war with the Ammonites, it was imperative that God hardens the heart of the King of Ammonites just like how our God hardened the heart of Pharaoh to resist the release of the Israelites until God has performed His miracles in order for His name to be declared throughout the earth.

Rom 9:17  For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.
Rom 9:18  Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.

In a similar vein, God hardens the flesh to resist it from conceding easily and to fight against us. The reason for strengthening the old man is the same as the purpose for hardening Pharaoh’s heart. That is, to show forth His power in us and to make His name known in everything that breathes within us.

Jdg 11:29  Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah, and he passed over Gilead, and Manasseh, and passed over Mizpeh of Gilead, and from Mizpeh of Gilead he passed over unto the children of Ammon. 

The Sprit of the Lord coming upon Jephthah is the same as our Lord opening our eyes to see and our ears to hear the word of God. That is when we are ready to start this fight against the enemy within, represented by the children of Ammon. As Jesus said, when the spirit comes, he will lead us into all truth – which in this particular case, is realizing who the enemy within is and engaging the enemy within in battle to overthrow his dominance in our lives.

John 16:13  Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.

Jdg 11:30  And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the LORD, and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands,
Jdg 11:31  Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the LORD’S, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering.

We see here that Jephthah made a vow to the Lord about what he would do for the Lord if he were granted victory. The question is, “Should we make a vow to the Lord?”  God does not desire us to make vows to Him because we have no idea what tomorrow brings.

Jas 4:13  Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain:
Jas 4:14  Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
Jas 4:15  For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.

What verses 30-31 are teaching us is that it is only God who can grant us victory over the flesh. Jephthah’s house in verse 31 symbolizes our bodies. So what these verses mean is that as God grants us victory over our old man or flesh, it is then that we can offer our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to the Lord.

Rom 12:1  I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
Rom 12:2  And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

From another spiritual perspective, we can see that it is only our Father God who can vow a vow because He only is capable of honoring His vow since He arranges everything and knows tomorrow. We can therefore say that Jephthah represents our Father God who swore by himself to assure us of victory against our old man by sacrificing the first to come out of his house (his creation), who is Christ our Lord. We therefore have this hope of salvation as an anchor that what He has started, He is able to finish!!  Let us lift our eyes from our present predicaments (judgments) knowing that He has vowed by Himself to defeat our enemies for us and to bless us!!

Heb 6:13  For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself,
Heb 6:14  Saying, Surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee.
Heb 6:15  And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise.
Heb 6:16  For men verily swear by the greater: and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife.
Heb 6:17  Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath:
Heb 6:18  That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: 
Heb 6:19  Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil;

Jdg 11:32  So Jephthah passed over unto the children of Ammon to fight against them; and the LORD delivered them into his hands. 
Jdg 11:33  And he smote them from Aroer, even till thou come to Minnith, even twenty cities, and unto the plain of the vineyards, with a very great slaughter. Thus the children of Ammon were subdued before the children of Israel.

Remember, that in verse 30 the spirit of the Lord took over Jephthah. It is the spirit which strengthened him to engage the Ammonites in a fight to defeat the enemy on his behalf. As indicated, the spirit is the word of God, and it is when our eyes are opening and our ears are hearing the word of God that we engage the enemy within in a fight to subdue it. This battle is the Lord’s. It is the Lord who fights our battle for us.  All we have to do is to stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, for the enemies we see today, we shall see no more.

Exo 14:13 And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will shew to you to day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to day, ye shall see them again no more for ever.
Exo 14:14  The LORD shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.

Jdg 11:34  And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: and she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter.

As we stated earlier, Jephthah represents our Father God who has made a vow to redeem us from our enemies by offering as a sacrifice whatever comes out of his creation (house) first. In this context, it is the daughter who came out of the house of Jephthah first, and she was the only offspring of Jephthah. What we need to understand is that in the scriptures, the spirit behind the words is more important than the details. We know from the scriptures that in Christ (in the word) there is neither male nor female. So the daughter here first represents our Lord Jesus Christ who is the only begotten of the Father who was sacrificed on our behalf so we can have the victory.

Gal 3:28  There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

This daughter also represents the church of the first born or the New Jerusalem. We are the first to come out of our Father’s house to appreciate the victory that our Lord Jesus (Jephthah) has wrought on our behalf.  Remember that Jesus Christ is also called our Father in the scriptures. Because Jesus won the victory over his flesh (the Ammonites) during his time on earth, we too, can win the victory over our flesh.

Isa 9:6  For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

Like the daughter of Jephthah, we too, are the first to come out to celebrate the victory of Christ in our lives with timbrels and with dances. Coming out with timbrels and dancing is the same as being of good cheer because our Father Lord Jesus has overcome the world for us. It also means we must praise the Lord for His wonderful works of deliverance towards us.

Joh 16:33  These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

Psa 107:8  Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!

Jdg 11:35  And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me: for I have opened my mouth unto the LORD, and I cannot go back.

This verse is to point out to us the pain our Father Jesus goes through when we are going through suffering as part of the sacrifice He has marked out for us. For we have a high priest who feels our pain. He really feels what we are going through.

Heb 4:15  For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.
Heb 4:16  Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.

For our brothers and sisters all over the world who are going through all kinds of pain, infirmities, etc., we are not alone in this fight of offering our lives as a living sacrifice. Just like the Hebrew young men who were thrown into fire to be burnt – Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego – there is always a fourth person (Jesus our Lord) who is with us in this fire of our affliction.

Dan 3:25  He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.

Isa 43:1  But now thus saith the LORD that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine. 
Isa 43:2  When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.

The good news is that all what we are going through now in this life do not compare with the glory stored up for us.

Rom 8:18  For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

In verse 35, Jephthah told his daughter that he has opened his mouth to the Lord and cannot go back. Our Lord Jesus is telling us that to the church, his daughter, he has sworn he will deliver us from our enemies and cannot go back. What He has started, He is able to finish!!

Php 1:6: And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally  finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.

Jdg 11:36  And she said unto him, My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth unto the LORD, do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth; forasmuch as the LORD hath taken vengeance for thee of thine enemies, even of the children of Ammon. 

This verse reminds me of what our Lord Jesus’ physical mother Mary said when she was told of Jesus’ birth. Despite the shame of being exposed as adulterous, she said, “Be it unto me according to thy word.” This was what the daughter of Jephthah also said, who first represents our Lord Jesus Christ and also the church of the first born. In other words, she despised the pain of being sacrificed for this victory over the Ammonites. Before this daughter of Jephthah was sacrificed, our Lord Jesus has already been sacrificed for our sake before the foundations of the world. Our Lord Jesus despised the shame and willingly endured the pain of being sacrificed at a tender age for our victory over the flesh.

Heb 12:2  Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Luk 1:38  And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.

Like a sheep led to the slaughter, our Lord Jesus never complained, like the daughter of Jephthah, but bore our sins for our victory.

Isa 53:6  All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Isa 53:7  He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.
Isa 53:8  He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.
Isa 53:9  And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. 
Isa 53:10  Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. 
Isa 53:11  He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. 

In spite of all the tribulation we are all going through now as part of our judgment, we should say just like Mary, “Be it unto me according to thy word.” This is what wins the war!! In this present age, we are also being offered as sacrifice, just like the daughter of Jephthah, to fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in our flesh.

Col 1:24  Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church:
Col 1:25  Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God;

Here in verse 25, Paul said that the reason for his ministry was to fulfill the word of God. This is the same as saying like Mary, “Be it unto me according to thy word”.

Let’s hear what Paul has to say about this victory through sacrifice which our Lord Jesus went through first and is exemplified by the daughter of Jephthah:

1Co 4:9  For I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to death: for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men.
1Co 4:10  We are fools for Christ’s sake, but ye are wise in Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong; ye are honourable, but we are despised. 
1Co 4:11  Even unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwellingplace;
1Co 4:12  And labour, working with our own hands: being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it:
1Co 4:13  Being defamed, we intreat: we are made as the filth of the world, and are the offscouring of all things unto this day.

Going through all these, do you think our walk with Christ is this greasy grace which we learned during our walk with the Lord in Babylon? Absolutely Not!!

Jdg 11:37  And she said unto her father, Let this thing be done for me: let me alone two months, that I may go up and down upon the mountains, and bewail my virginity, I and my fellows. 
Jdg 11:38  And he said, Go. And he sent her away for two months: and she went with her companions, and bewailed her virginity upon the mountains.

Jephthah’s daughter’s request to go up and down the mountains to bewail her virginity was granted by his father. This tells us of Jesus stripping off the glory He had with the Father to come down to earth to bewail his virginity. Spiritually, virginity here signifies election. The number two means witness, and so the two months that Jephthah’s daughter asked is the period that our Lord Jesus walked on this earth to bear witness to the truth. Bewailing her virginity means taking up the cross because of His election.  So what these verses mean is that Jesus took up his cross of suffering while here on earth bearing witness to the truth.

Luk 9:23  And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.
Luk 9:24  For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it.

The word of God says that as He is, so are we here on earth. We, too, like the daughter of Jephthah and our Lord Jesus Christ, must bewail our virginity for two months by taking up the cross and following our Lord Jesus in our lives here on earth as we bear witness to the truth.

1Jn 4:17  Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.

Jdg 11:39  And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed: and she knew no man. And it was a custom in Israel,

At the end of Jesus’ life here on earth, represented here by the two months, he returned to His Father after being sacrificed by bearing our sins on the cross. She knew no man in verse 39 here means that Jesus did not sin while here on earth. The statement in this verse, “And it was a custom in Israel” means that as Israel of God we are also to follow the example of Jesus by enduring suffering as part of filling up that which is left behind of the afflictions of Christ in the flesh and bearing witness to the truth while living here on earth. On a negative note externally, the sacrificial death of our Lord Jesus became a stumbling block to our brothers in Babylon. They observe as a custom the physical death of our Lord Jesus Christ just like the heathens celebrate their ancestors or gods when the Lord has warned us not to follow after the customs of this world or enquire about how the world worships their gods. We used to be involved in these rituals while we were in Babylon.

Deu 12:29  When the LORD thy God shall cut off the nations from before thee, whither thou goest to possess them, and thou succeedest them, and dwellest in their land;
Deu 12:30  Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou enquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise.
Deu 12:31  Thou shalt not do so unto the LORD thy God: for every abomination to the LORD, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods.

Jdg 11:40  That the daughters of Israel went yearly to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in a year.

The daughters of Israel symbolize Babylon. What this verse therefore means is that a time will come when brothers and sisters in Babylon will also bewail their virginity just like the daughter of Jephthah. In other words, they will also take up their cross and follow our Lord Jesus Christ. Currently, it is the elect who are bewailing their virginity. However, Babylon will also bewail her virginity in the lake of fire age through the agency of God’s elect.

Rom 11:30  For as ye in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief:
Rom 11:31  Even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy.
Rom 11:32  For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.

The verse said that the daughters of Israel will lament four days in a year. The number four means the whole of the matter being discussed, so four days means all of the days in a year.  In other words, our bewailing or lamenting is throughout our lives here on earth. Babylon will also come to know Christ and bear witness to the truth!!

1Co 15:22  For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
1Co 15:23  But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.
1Co 15:24  Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.

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Rev 14:1  And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father’s name written in their foreheads.
Rev 14:2  And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps:
Rev 14:3  And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred [ and] forty [ and] four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth.
Rev 14:4  These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb.
Rev 14:5  And in their mouth was found no guile: for they are without fault before the throne of God.

Introduction

We have already demonstrated that this symbol of 144.000 who stand with the Lamb upon mount Sion is the symbol of God’s elect. So we will not belabor that subject. Instead we will remind ourselves that this is another chapter which leads up to and prepares us for the revelation of the events of the seventh trump, which is the pouring out upon our beast the fullness of the wrath of God. The six previous trumpets were sounded and immediately explained, but this seventh trumpet is first mentioned in Rev 10, then we are told that it is sounded in chapter 11, but it will not be explained until until the 16th chapter. Here is how this seventh trumpet is first introduced to us in Rev 10.

Rev 10:5  And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven,
Rev 10:6  And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer: [ no longer any delay]
Rev 10:7  But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.

“The days… when he shall begin to sound…” certainly reveals that this seventh trumpet is part of a process that is taking place within us, which has nothing to do with the literal sounding of a trumpet within just minutes, or even hours. “This mystery of God” was revealed in our study of chapter 10 to be the revelation of “the secret which has been hidden from the ages and from generations”, but we need to be reminded what “that mystery of God… which He has declared to His servants the prophets” is. So here is what that great mystery which was declared to His servants the prophets is:

Col 1:26  Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints:
Col 1:27  To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:

So now we know what this seventh trumpet is all about. “When this seventh angel begins to sound [ within our lives] the mystery of God… the mystery of Christ in us the hope of glory… should be finished, as He has declared to His servants the prophets.” Christ in us is not just a vague term or phrase. “Christ in you” has a specific meaning to those who truly know Christ. What that phrase means it that Christ is reliving His life of rejection by this world in us. What exactly does that entail? It’s not what we have been taught. Here is what that means. Here is what the seventh trumpet is all about:

Luk 18:31  Then he took unto him the twelve, and said unto them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished.
Col 1:24  Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of [ Greek, the] Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church:

That is what the sounding of this seventh trumpet begins to “finish”. That is what He has declared to His servants the prophets. Christ is the king of the kingdom of God. Where is that kingdom? It just happens to be in the exact same place where the king of that kingdom resides:

Luk 17:20  And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation:
Luk 17:21  Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

That is the mystery which God has declared to His servants the prophets. It concerns both Christ in us and His kingdom within us, because those two things are not two things at all. They are both the same thing, and they are both the same event which “begins to be finished, in the days when the seventh angel begins to sound”.
These 144,000 are the symbol for the body of Christ, as those in whom He has taken up His residence.

Luk 24:27  And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.

“Beginning with Moses”, just to be sure we understand, means beginning with Genesis, the first of the “five books of Moses”. “… And all the prophets” means “all of the prophets”, major and minor. “He expounded unto them in all of the scriptures…” means that “all of the scriptures” concern Christ Himself. That is what all of scripture concerns itself with. “All the scriptures… concern Himself”. They all concern Christ, because “He is the beginning and the end”, and that means He is also everything in between.
While this book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ was not written at the time He was speaking to these two men on the road to Emmaus, this book certainly is His own Revelation of Himself, in far greater detail than in the law of Moses and all of the prophets.
Having already discussed the symbolism of the 144,000 as those who comprise the body of Christ who will come up in the first resurrection and rule the kingdom of this world for a thousand years followed by judging angels in the lake of fire, we will only dwell on the things that we have not mentioned in that past study.

Rev 14:1  And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father’s name written in their foreheads.

“Having their Fathers name written in their foreheads” is the symbol we have just discussed in the previous chapter concerning the mark, name, number and image of the beast. “The mark of the name of the beast” is in our foreheads when we are living that part of our walk.

Rev 14:11  And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.

We saw that the symbol of “in their foreheads” means that we think and act as our father the devil, when we are His children. Likewise we have our Father’s name in our foreheads as the symbol of the fact that we now, as the elect sons of God, think and act as He thinks and as He acts.
We covered this in great detail when we covered this verse of chapter 13:

Rev 13:16  And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:

The mark is said to be “the mark of His name”, and the number is also called “the number of his name”.

Rev 13:17  And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

Just as God had told Israel that His “mark” would be in their right hand and in their foreheads, so is the name, number and mark of the beast in our right hands and in our foreheads.

Deu 6:6  And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:
Deu 6:7  And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
Deu 6:8  And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes.

The Lamb is said to be “standing upon Mount Sion.” Mount Sion is called the place where God will dwell and the place of God’s rest.

Psa 132:13  For the LORD hath chosen Zion; he hath desired it for his habitation.
Psa 132:14  This is my rest for ever: here will I dwell; for I have desired it.

Since we are told that God dwells in His people, and since we are told that He dwells in us, it is obvious that “Mount Sion” is just another symbol of God’s elect.

Rev 21:3  And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.
1Co 3:16  Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
1Co 3:17  If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.

Rev 14:2  And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps:

Since we have just established where God dwells, and we have found that He dwells in His people, we have also established that ‘heaven’ is within us, because we are also told that “God dwells in the heavens”.

Psa 103:19  The LORD hath prepared his throne in the heavens; and his kingdom ruleth over all.
Psa 123:1 <A Song of degrees.> Unto thee lift I up mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heavens.

God’s voice is often referred to as “the voice of many waters”.

Eze 43:2  And, behold, the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east: and his voice was like a noise of many waters: and the earth shined with his glory.

This statement in Ezekiel evokes thoughts of the roar that is associated with great waterfalls like Niagara Falls, which are so loud that nothing else can be heard. While that thought is no doubt very valid, we need to also remember that God’s Word is itself referred to in scripture as waters.

Joh 4:10  Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.
Joh 7:38  He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
Eph 5:26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,

So “the voice of many waters” is the voice of the truth of God’s Word, and the Truth of God’s Word involves the truth that judgment is now on the house of God” (1Pe 4:17). Those words of God speaking of that judgment are referred to “as the voice of a great thunder”.

Exo 9:23  And Moses stretched forth his rod toward heaven: and the LORD sent thunder [ judgment] and hail, and the fire ran along upon the ground; and the LORD rained hail upon the land of Egypt [ our flesh and the lies we believe]

It is that judgment upon our flesh and all the false doctrines which appeal to our flesh, that this seventh trumpet is all about. This 14th chapter, speaking of these 144,000, assures us that God will see us all through His judgments, but we are never to deny that we are being judged and that God’s judgment against lies and sin is so severe that all lies and liars and all sin and death will in the end be destroyed.
Notice what the presence of God’s thunder reveals:

Exo 9:29  And Moses said unto him, As soon as I am gone out of the city, I will spread abroad my hands unto the LORD; [ and] the thunder shall cease, neither shall there be any more hail; that thou mayest know how that the earth is the LORD’S.

So even this sinful earth is the Lord’s, and all that takes place within it is His work for His pleasure:

Pro 16:4  The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.

The wicked are not wicked by their own free will. They are wicked “for the Lord” and for His own purpose and His own will.

Eph 1:11  In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:

So even the lies we believe are actually evil, lying spirits which are “from the Lord” by the agency of the Lord’s Satan.

1Sa 16:14  But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him.
1Sa 16:15  And Saul’s servants said unto him, Behold now, an evil spirit from God troubleth thee
1Ki 22:20  And the LORD said, Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramothgilead? And one said on this manner, and another said on that manner.
1Ki 22:21  And there came forth a spirit, and stood before the LORD, and said, I will persuade him.
1Ki 22:22  And the LORD said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt persuade [ him], and prevail also: go forth, and do so.
1Ki 22:23  Now therefore, behold, the LORD hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the LORD hath spoken evil concerning thee.

So “the Lord… puts a lying spirit in the mouth of all” the false prophets of this world. We all hear their lies and believe their lies and propagate those lies ourselves. This all provides the Lord the occasion He is seeking against us, as He was seeking here against Ahab and as He sought against the Philistines.

Jdg 14:4  But his father and his mother knew not that it was of the LORD [ Samson’s desire for a Philistine wife], that he sought an occasion against the Philistines: for at that time the Philistines had dominion over Israel.

The Philistines in scripture are those who are in the promised land without the agency or benefit of circumcision. They did not come up out of Egypt as we all must. They are the type and shadow of the lies that deny the need for coming through the baptisms of the Red Sea, the forty years of trials in the wilderness and the baptism of the Jordan River. In short, they are the shadow of all the lies of Babylon, and that is why hail is so often mentioned in connection with the thunder of the voice of the Lord.
Why is hail mentioned in connection with thunder? What does that hail signify and symbolize?

Isa 28:17  Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.

There it is. Thunder is connected in scriptural types and shadows with judgment. And the judgment of that thunder will bring with it the hail and lightning which will “wipe away the refuge of all the lies” of Babylon within us. In the end, our old man is judged, dethroned and destroyed, and our new man reigns on His rightful throne in our hearts.

1Sa 2:10  The adversaries of the LORD shall be broken to pieces; out of heaven shall he thunder upon them: the LORD shall judge the ends of the earth; and he shall give strength unto his king, and exalt the horn of his anointed.

That is the meaning and purpose for “the voice of a great thunder”.

“Harpers harping with their harps”

But what is the symbolism of “the voice of harpers harping with their harps”? Who are these “harpers”? Here is who these harpers are, and once again we see that there are only two men in the entirety of scripture:

Rev 5:8  And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints.

It is the four beasts and the four and twenty elders who are these “harpers harping with their harps” It is they who have “the harps of God”.
Who do the four beasts and the four and twenty elders with harps symbolize? We are not left to guess. The answer is in the very next verse:

Rev 5:9  And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation;
Rev 5:10  And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth.

Where else do we see these redeemed of God with harps?

Rev 15:2  And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God.

Those who “stand on the sea of glass mingled with fire” are “them that had gotten the victory over the beast”. They are but another symbol for those who “have been redeem to God by the blood of Christ out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation.” They are both God’s few, faithful chosen elect. They are the 12,000 from every tribe of Israel. They are the firstfruits unto God and the lamb. They are this 144.000.

Rev 14:3  And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth.

Who else sings this “new song”? We just read who else sings this “new song”. But just in case we might have missed it, let’s go back to the four beasts and four and twenty elders of Rev 5. That is right, it is the same “four beasts and four and twenty elders” who have the harps of God.

Rev 5:8  And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints.
Rev 5:9  And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation;

Since “no one can learn that [ new] song but the hundred and forty and four thousand which were redeemed from the earth, and since John hears harpers harping with their harps when He sees these hundred and forty and four thousand, and since the four beasts and the four and twenty elders are also redeemed from the earth, have every one of them harps, and are also singing this same “new song”, it is clear to anyone with any spiritual discernment that these two symbols, like Pharaoh’s two dreams, “are one”.

Gen 41:5  And he slept and dreamed the second time: and, behold, seven ears of corn came up upon one stalk, rank and good.
Gen 41:25  And Joseph said unto Pharaoh, The dream of Pharaoh is one: God hath shewed Pharaoh what he is about to do.

What other symbols are used to show us who these 144,000 symbolize? Here is more symbolism for the same people:

Rev 14:4  These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb.

“These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins”. Who is a virgin in scriptural symbolism?

2Co 11:2  For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.

A repentant harlot is a spiritually “chaste virgin to Christ”. The same is true of any man or woman who has repented of his or her adultery, fornication or uncleanness of any kind. The same principle applies to molested children who have accepted Christ as their savior. All who have Christ living His life of rejection and tribulation and persecution, within them, are “chaste virgins unto Christ”.
“These follow the Lamb where ever he goes”. What does that mean? It means that these recognize that they follow and live by the doctrine of Christ, and that doctrine is that “Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God” (Mat 4:4). It means that these virgins “fill up in their bodies what is behind of the afflictions of the Christ, for His body’s sake which is the church”

Col 1:24  Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ [ the Greek has the article ‘the’, and reads ‘the Christ’] in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church:

That is where the Lamb went, and that is where His virgin bride goes with Him. It is Christians who are espoused unto Christ as a chaste virgin, who are “redeemed from among men, and are the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb”.

Rom 8:23  And not only they [ the whole creation, verse 22], but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.

We are the adoption, and we are redeemed in earnest only at this time, and we are still “waiting for the adoption and the redemption of our bodies”.

Eph 1:13  In whom ye also trusted [ in Christ], after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,
Eph 1:14  Which is the earnest [ Greek, down payment] of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.

God’s “firstfruits unto God and the Lamb” are right now “waiting for the adoption… the redemption of our bodies”. That is the honor we have been given if indeed Christ is living His life within us and we are “redeemed from among men”, and as His espoused bride we are going wherever He goes.

Jas 1:18  Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

Rev 14:5  And in their mouth was found no guile: for they are without fault before the throne of God.

No healthy marriage relationship can exist on anything less than the Truth. A marriage based on lies cannot last, and we simply cannot say “Lord, Lord” and at the same time not do the things that Christ, our husband, says to do.

Luk 6:46  And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?

We may deceive ourselves that we are obeying our spiritual husband, but He is not deceived. “There is no guile in the mouths of God’s elect, the espoused bride of Christ”. That is why we are told that Christ’s bride has heard the thunder of God and is familiar with the lightning that produces that thunder and hail.

Isa 28:17  Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.

It is because “the hail [ has] swept away the refuge of lies” within us, that there is no guile in our mouth, and we are without fault before the throne of God.

Mat 12:5  Or have ye not read in the law, how that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless? [“before the throne of God”].
Rom 8:33  Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth.

God’s elect, His one hundred and forty and four thousand virgins, His four beasts and four and twenty elders singing a new song, harping with their harps, are without fault before the throne of God and of the Lamb”.

Summary

Rev 14:1  And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty [ and] four thousand, having his Father’s name written in their foreheads.

What we have seen in this study is that the Lamb standing on Mount Sion, and the hundred and forty and four thousand, together are “the Christ”, who one and all think and act as our heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ think and act. This is true to the extent that Christ says of us: I am Jesus of Nazareth whom you persecute”.

Act 22:8  And I answered, Who art thou, Lord? And he said unto me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest.

We saw that mount Sion is just another symbol of where God has desired to dwell in His people. That being the case, the hundred and forty and four thousand are the same as mount Sion.

Rev 14:2  And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps:

We have seen that the voice from heaven as the voice of a great thunder, and the voice of many waters is simply the Word of God, and that the great thunder is the symbol of the judgment that comes with the fiery lightning which produces that thunder and its accompanying hail. We also saw that the thunder of God is the judgment of our sinful flesh, and that the hail of that thunder “wipes away the refuge of lies”, which is the doctrines of Babylon in which we thrive before God’s thunderous Word comes to us and judges us.

Isa 28:17  Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.

We saw that these harpers are the same as the four beasts and the four and twenty elders, who all have harps and sing the same new song just as these 144,000.

Rev 14:3  And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth

We have seen that the new song sung by the 144,000, can only be sung by the 144,000, and yet the harps which John hears here with the 144,000, and the fact that both the 144,000 and the four beasts and the four and twenty elders, all sing this same song, have the same harps and are both “redeemed from the earth, proves that these two symbols, like Pharaoh’s dreams, are both symbols of one thing. And that one thing is the few chosen and faithful elect of God, who are in both cases “redeemed from the earth”.

Rev 14:4  These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb.

We have seen that those who are “not defiled with women, and are virgins” are not virgins because they have never known women, but rather they are virgins because they have overcome the name, number, mark and image of the beast. We saw that being a virgin is a matter of repentance of our own ways, and obedience to the words and ways of our Lord. Being a virgin is a matter of coming out of the lies and sins of Babylon and her harlot daughters.

2Co 11:2  For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.
Rev 18:4  And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my [ virgin] people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.

Rev 14:5  And in their mouth was found no guile: for they are without fault before the throne of God.

We saw that the world will despise and reject God’s elect but that in the end no one can “lay anything to the charge of God’s elect” because, in God’s eyes they are “without guile, without blame, and without fault before the throne of God.”

Mat 12:5  Or have ye not read in the law, how that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless? [“before the throne of God”].
Rom 8:31  What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?
Rom 8:35  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
Rom 8:36  As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
Rom 8:37  Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
Rom 8:38  For I am persuaded, t hat neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
Rom 8:39  Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Next week, Lord willing, we will cover these six verses in our study, and we will see that the preaching of the everlasting gospel is all about the fact that “the hour of His judgment is come”, which judgment will produce the “worship of the maker of heaven, and earth and the sea and the fountains of water”.

Rev 14:6  And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people,
Rev 14:7  Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.
Rev 14:8  And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.
Rev 14:9  And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive [ his] mark in his forehead, or in his hand,
Rev 14:10  The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:
Rev 14:11  And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.
Rev 14:12  Here is the patience of the saints: here [ are] they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.

Hello Mike,

Before I go any further, I want you to know that I don’t take you, or your responses to my questions, for granted. I really appreciate what God is doing through you for me, and seeing you, I know what I must become. You answered my question about the origins of Satan, and the Lucifer hoax. I hoped that God would heal my parents of their spiritual blindness through your email. I read your email to my parents, and well, let’s just say that when Jesus said to his disciples “to them it is not given” he really meant it!

My relationship with God is now clear, my time has come to be taken out of the sea of humanity, and the long and painful process of being fashioned into the image of God has begun, and God is using you to help do this. It pleased him to save me, and pleased him to use you to help do this. My question is short and simple, and not one that will challenge anyone’s scholastic capability. Here it is: Do I have to get married? I am 22 years old, and could care less now about women or marriage. Though I decided long ago not to touch a woman I was not married to, I’ve been in love before, and if you’ve been in love you know how special it is. But I want that feeling and love and dedication to be with Christ, and no one else, but does God want us to be married? Is it required? I am told this all day long.

Your friend, and brother in Christ,

B____

Hi B____,

You are right, it does not take a scholar to answer your question. The simple answer is that physical marriage is not a requirement for salvation. But the simple obvious truth is also that very few men are gifted with the ability to “keep their virgin.” Here is what Christ told the apostles on this very subject:

Mat 19:12 For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from [their] mother’s womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.

I hope that you have learned by now that Christ’s words are spirit. He is not talking about self-mutilation and castration. What he is referring to is the trait He and the apostle Paul both shared. They were “eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake.”

So whether you are “able to receive it” or not, will become obvious to you by how much you “burn” with sexual passion. Here is Paul’s [Christ’s] comment on this situation:

1Co 7:7 For I would that all men were even as I myself. But every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that.
1Co 7:8 I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I.
1Co 7:9 But if they cannot contain their sexual desires], let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn [with sexual passions which God has not “gifted” you to live without].

Don’t assume anything. You are very young. God will make it obvious what you are to do in His time. I am going to quote you a scripture I have probably already quoted to you, and I will probably quote it again:

Luk 21:19 In your patience possess ye your souls.

And this too:

Luk 8:15 But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience.

This is not an overnight process. It is instead a life-long process. So keep the faith even when it seems that the Adversary is having you for lunch. God already knows whether He has a wife out there for you. While you are waiting patiently to find out,just remember this verse:

Php 1:6 Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:

Mike